With the installation of the first “Cajeme 10M Solar” panel farm in Ciudad Obregón, Mayor Rogelio Diaz Brown Ramsburgh placed the Municipality at the forefront of renewable energy policies nationwide.

That is by establishing a project in which a municipality and a drinking water agency are supplied by solar, starting one of the most momentous development schemes for the region.

“This farm will produce about 70 percent of the energy consumed by the Municipal Government, whether in public lighting, buildings, courts, public spaces, among others,” he said during his speech.

For two years he sought to attract this photovoltaic generation park…

Like other success stories of this administration, with this project, established molds are broken in the quest to become a self-sustaining municipality, he said.

In addition to saving 20 percent in energy expenditure by City Hall, he said, clean energy will be produced for a period of 20 years at a cost below that of the Federal Electricity Commission.

To realize this plan, he stressed, the investment of 25 million dollars from the company Zigor Mexico and Latam, and the intervention of the Derwick company have been necessary.

…

The event was attended by the federal manager Faustino Felix Chavez, the local deputy Rossana Coboj García; the Town Clerk, Antonio Alvidrez Labrado; director of Zigor Mexico and LATAM, Alfredo Garcia de Jalon; and Derwick vice president, Pedro Trebbau López, among other officials.

Good to see Derwick moving on from Venezuela’s empty piñata and finding new business development opportunities.

The US is offering to pick up where Venezuela’s PetroCaribe has left off, by offering financial aid for Caribbean nations that want clean energy. Solar and wind resources in the Caribbean are huge, and unlike cheap oil, they are likely to last for the next few million years.

Here’s a note just posted by the White House (hat tip to Boz, who tweeted it and is probably writing a more insightful note on the topic at this moment):

Clean Energy Finance Facility for the Caribbean and Central American (CEFF-CCA): The United States will launch a $20 million facility to encourage investment in clean energy projects…

Clean Energy Finance: In January, OPIC formed a dedicated financing and insurance team to advance development of the Caribbean renewable energy sector. OPIC is in advanced talks to finance a 20 MW solar farm in Jamaica, and has already committed financing to Jamaica’s largest private-sector wind farm, a 36 MW facility in Malvern, St. Elizabeth Parish. OPIC is actively looking for opportunities to support solar and wind energy projects in Jamaica and throughout the broader Caribbean region…

Clean Energy Economy Transition: The Department of Energy assembled U.S. and Caribbean stakeholder working groups to look at opportunities ranging from clean energy, efficiency, diversifying electricity generation, clean transportation and energy education, at the Caribbean Clean Energy Technology Symposium, held in St. Thomas in March…

Greening Tourism: … Caribbean Hotel Energy Efficiency and Renewables (CHEER) initiative, which supports projects to improve energy and water efficiency as well as the exchange of best practices in the hotel and tourism industry. USAID is launching a complementary project focused on the Eastern Caribbean that will develop new financing tools for energy efficiency and renewables.

I am skeptical of PetroCaribe because I don’t like anything that encourages poor people or countries to increase their fossil fuel dependence. Oil is likely to get more expensive over time and even if it doesn’t, burning oil and gas contributes to climate change and increase dependence on global trade, both of which are especially risky for small island countries.

I know the US is doing this out of self-interest, both trying to get brownie points with small countries that have votes at the UN, OAS, etc. and also trying to expand markets for big solar and wind companies. I’m sure there will be criticism of the program because it’s not altruistic, while PetroCaribe arguably is/was. But if that’s the best criticism of this project, bring it on. A world full of that sort of problems would be a world I’d be happy to live in.

In a way, this is the best possible result of PetroCaribe. I can’t prove this, but I suspect that if it weren’t for competition for regional loyalty from energy-rich Venezuela, I doubt the US would be doing this right now. But the competition is there, and this relatively interesting program is born.

This is part of why it is so sad that the Venezuelan revolution was so laden with hypocrisy and corruption. The basic idea of a “mundo pluripolar” is sound.

This is what we like to see. Here is January’s power mix in Chile, with year-over-year change in the right-hand column:

The power generation mix in Chile’s main electrical grid, the SIC, has changed a bit over the past year: Solar generation up 22-fold, wind generation up 3.5-fold, hydro generation up 10%, and thermal — meaning fossil fuels — down 6%. Source here.

Add to that what happened in February. Note that solar power quadrupled month-over-month.

According to Business News Americas, the upshot is that February’s solar energy output in the SIC grid increased more than 100-fold over a year earlier.

Much more solar and wind power has been approved for construction in the country, so next year the GWh from solar should be even higher.

Why I’m here

I'm Steven Bodzin, a reporter and investigator. I have lived in Chile, Venezuela, and Canada, and am now working at REDD Intelligence in New York. You can see my paid work here. I continue to follow South America and I'm especially interested in corruption in the energy industry. Here, I share some of the sights, experiences and half-baked thoughts that I am not sure I'll ever get paid to publish, or little leads that might help attract new sources. If you know more about any of these stories, please share. You can contact me at settysoutham@gmail.com.